Domaine Delhomme & Co.
Treigny-Perreuse-Sainte-Colombe, Yonne Department
Burgundy & Loire Valley, France

Far from Burgundy’s postcard Côte d’Or, in a quiet fold of hills where the southern Yonne slides into the Loire’s Nièvre, Baptiste Delhomme works from a small pastoral pocket in Treigny-Perreuse-Sainte-Colombe, Burgundy. He has known this north-western Burgundian locale since childhood. As a teenager, he farmed a small plot of hybrid vines, vinifying and selling the wine “off the books” to friends and neighbours — an early, unshakable apprenticeship in the rhythms of low impact, sensitive and honest viniculture.

Today, Baptiste tends around 16ha total of organically farmed vines, with his heartland 6.5ha in Yonne and Nièvre — in Lainsecq, Andryes, and the Tannay hillsides — and further parcels scattered across the Centre-Val de Loire in Sologne (neighbour to Etienne Courtois) and in Muscadet amongst the Pay de Retz in the Loire-Atlantique department, since 2023. In Yonne, his vines root into clay-limestone; in Sologne, they dig through red clay shot with silex and silica, scattered with fossilised shells from the Paleolithic era. This geological patchwork underpins his philosophy: revive forgotten parcels and blend the precision of Burgundy with the risk-taking spirit of the Loire Valley.

Baptiste works entirely outside appellation rules, valuing freedom over conformity. His viticulture is traditional and attentive — horse-drawn ploughs to preserve soil life, no systemic or synthetics inputs, biodiversity encouraged at every turn. Pinot Noir anchors his reds, joined by Gamay, Côt, and Cabernet Franc; Chardonnay, Aligoté, and Sauvignon Blanc lead the whites, with Savagnin, Sacy, Viognier, Pinot Gris, Melon de Bourgogne, and even a few hybrids for added colour completing an ampelographic diversity rarely seen in the region.

Harvests are by hand, yields are low, and selection ruthless. In Treigny, work moves at a patient pace: reds are destemmed manually; whites are pressed once, slow & gently, in a century-old wooden ratchet press to capture the purest juice. Fermentations run exclusively on native yeasts, with no sugar, no fining, no filtration. Ageing unfolds in varied vessels; old oak barrels, large wooden vats, amphorae, and Georgian Qvevri for up to a year. All bottled sans additions.

Baptiste calls himself a “farmer and producer of free wines”, and each cuvée shifts with the season — expressive & alive with terroir, protected with the faintest natural sparkle of dissolved CO2 that preserves freshness in lieu of SO2. His partner handcrafts ceramic wine bottles - which occasionally feature amongst the wines, a tactile reminder that this is as much art as it is agriculture. The wines — supple, bright-fruited reds (Rouge De La, Punk’s Pinot Dead) and vibrant, saline whites (Super Ali, Vignes de la Justice) — are vivid, stable, & generous, natural in the truest sense: nothing forced, nothing stripped away. They inhabit the meeting point between Burgundy’s elegance and the Loire’s verve, without being beholden to either.

Friends and admirers describe him as a “peasant-libertarian with punk warmth,” a vigneron whose charisma is matched only by the sincerity of his craft. From his teenage rows of hybrids to today’s cross-regional mosaic, Baptiste Delhomme has remained true to one aim: to make wines as open-handed, characterful, and alive as the land itself.